No Sizzling Signings

Think the 49ers will pursue Albert Haynesworth in the free agency? Won’t happen. Even though general manager Scot McCloughan in a conference call with the local media Thursday afternoon said the 49ers are about $25 million under the salary cap, they won’t be making “a big splash” when the market opens at 9 p.m. tonight.

McCloughan estimated the team is in the top five or six teams in terms of salary cap room, but McCloughan wants the 49ers to be known as a team that builds through the draft. He also said he’s concentrating his efforts on re-signing his own players and chief among them is quarterback Alex Smith.

“He’s on his honeymoon right now, so that has slowed things down,” McCloughan said. The team can carry Smith’s 2009 salary until training camp, which denies Smith the opportunity to become a free agent. But McCloughan expects to come to agreement with Smith soon, even before next month’s minicamp (the 49ers will have a pre-draft minicamp this year).

McCloughan did say he’d try to improve the team through free agency but wouldn’t sign any players tonight. In fact, McCloughan said he wouldn’t sign any players until they visited the facility first, and visits could come as soon as tomorrow.

McCloughan said he doesn’t expect to release any players soon and that includes tackle Jonas Jennings, who’s due to make $4.2 million in base salary in 2009. McCloughan intimated that Jennings’s contract would need to be redone because of his lack of durability.

No timetable has been established for Isaac Bruce’s decision on retiring, which McCloughan put at 50-50, the same odds he placed on re-signing Spikes.

Is the team hoarding cash? Not necessarily. They have some big ticket items coming up including extending the contracts of linebacker Patrick Willis and tackle Joe Staley. But don’t expect that to happen right way.